ABC Hoping ‘Coach’ Game Plan Will Score

TV or not TV. . . .

KICKOFF: ABC gives the ball to “Coach” tonight, pairing it with “Roseanne” in hopes of saving the network’s strongest lineup. “Coach,” with Craig T. Nelson as a college football honcho, is a clear ABC attempt to go all-American after canceling Jackie Mason’s ethnic “Chicken Soup,” which occupied the same post-”Roseanne” slot at 9:30.

SAFETY: Funny thing is, Nelson’s jock-type character is just as unbelievable in his relationship with his refined girlfriend (Shelley Fabares) as Mason’s Jewish salesman was in his romance with an Irish widow (Lynn Redgrave). But “Coach” is safer, if you know what I mean. Anyway, Nelson has a nice comic flair, and if you look fast, his expression might even remind you of Rams’ coach John Robinson.

BENCH STRENGTH: The best line of the night, however, goes to Nelson’s aide, Jerry Van Dyke, who’s taken to an art gallery by Fabares. “So basically,” says Van Dyke, “what you’re telling me is that everything here was done on purpose.”

MEETING OF THE MINDS: Should be a night to remember if that Roseanne Barr guest shot with David Letterman comes off as scheduled next Tuesday. Couple days later, meanwhile--Dec. 2--Barr’s “Roseanne” co-star, John Goodman, hosts “Saturday Night Live,” and k.d. lang’s a guest.

ONE-UPPED: Nifty commercial by Dodge needling Porsche’s boast of its getaway advantage. “You mean,” asks a guy in the ad, “he spent an extra 70 grand for two seconds?”

HOLIDAY FEAST: KTLA’s annual Thanksgiving Day marathon of “The Twilight Zone” begins at 9 a.m. and runs 13 hours. Every buff knows the opening episode: “One for the Angels,” with Ed Wynn as a sidewalk salesman who persuades Mr. Death (Murray Hamilton) to give him a reprieve for a final grand exit. According to the book “The Twilight Zone Companion,” because of Wynn’s age, night scenes were shot during the day by pulling tarpaulins over the back-lot tenement street.

OVERKILL: “Tonight, see history in the making,” says a KHJ-TV ad hyping the new Jerry Dunphy-Pat Harvey anchor team that’s working toward a three-hour prime-time broadcast. Well, the big broadcast isn’t here yet, and history is nowhere in sight on the utterly ordinary news shows that Channel 9 has put on thus far. We’ll cheer when the time comes. Maybe.

A SPECIAL LADY: The news that the wonderful Amanda Blake--Kitty on “Gunsmoke”--died of AIDS is still haunting. Wonder how many people heard or read the added reports that her husband also died of AIDS several years ago.

SUMMING IT UP: Just last year, Blake told us: “I remember somebody saying ‘Gunsmoke’ was four or five people sitting around in a saloon saying hello to each other. And I think that was great.”

GREETINGS: Paul Shaffer, the indispensable bandleader and comic foil on the Letterman show, hits the big 4-0 next Tuesday. And former CBS commentator Eric Sevareid turns 77 on Sunday. Sevareid once cracked that “Dealing with network executives is like being nibbled to death by ducks.”

ANNIVERSARY: It was 26 years ago Wednesday that the nation watched President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on TV. For four days, there were no commercials on the networks. The transition back to normal, commercial programming was almost unbearable, but it was eased by a gentle, lovely ABC Thanksgiving show--the children’s special “The Cowboy and the Tiger,” a musical fantasy starring Jack Gilford.

BEGINNINGS: If that wasn’t young Aaron Spelling playing a pathetic clerk-turned-killer in an old movie with Richard Boone and Jeanne Crain on cable’s Nostalgia Channel--and doing a very good job--then I’ll contribute $100 to help pay off his new mansion.

PROGRESS: Aaron’s doing a little better now--Forbes magazine says he’s worth $345 million, give or take a few cents. And there you were wondering what purpose “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island” served.

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE TV: Looks like a very special “Murphy Brown” next Monday. Murphy (Candice Bergen) wins a journalism award, and her divorced parents come to visit--which means Colleen Dewhurst is back as mom, with Darren McGavin as pop.

FOR THE AGES: So there’s Dick Powell, as Philip Marlowe, getting drugged, beaten up and otherwise demoralized in “Murder My Sweet” on cable’s American Movie Classics channel, and how did he feel? “As crazy as a couple of waltzing mice.”

Say good night, Gracie. . . .